Pay-per-click search (PPC) engines allow companies to bid on keywords that are related to their websites. Website owners can choose the keywords that are related to their business, service, or products, and bid on the position on which they want to get their website listed. The higher the company bids, the higher their website will appear in the search results and the more traffic it will receive. A website owner can also submit a website title and description, which is displayed with their website listing.

Some pay-per-click search engines, such as Overture, have an automated system that enable a website to get listed in the search engine results within a very short period of time, while some other pay-per-click search engines take a few business days.

Pay-per-click search engines may sell their ranks to website owner, but they also give the relevancy of the websites a higher priority in order to retain surfers. It is a general belief that among internet surfers that paid rankings decreases the relevancy of the search results.

However, the relevancy of results provided by pay-per-click search engines does not assure the quality of the websites.